Advertisement:

So, you've got a funny character in a Slapstick, just lining up a wave of truly incredibly bad and unlucky physical traumas for the character to wade through for your audience's twisted amusement. Just one problem. The things your character is about to go through would kill any normal being. Enter the Iron Butt-Monkey.

Advertisement:

Examples:

In Angel Beats!, due to the fact that everyone is already dead and in the afterlife, everyone will fully recover from any injuries, no matter how fatal or violent. This leads to several scenes where characters are killed for humor.

Keigo Asano from Bleach is beaten and walked all over in pretty much every one of his appearances, but he never seems to get tired of it, keeps trying to get the girls that smack him around, and at one point actually blocked a kick from Rangiku, Shinigami who tend to be at least slightly stronger than normal humans.

Pretty much every time Sunohara shows up, you can be guaranteed that someone is going to deliver him a Megaton Punch or kick him across the room by the end of the scene. Not only that, but he pretty much just gets up like nothing happened and walks away, when any other cast member would likely need a stretcher to leave.

Kimihito Kurusu of Daily Life with Monster Girl is a regular guy, stuck in the same house as a very strong Lamia, a Centaur, a dippy Harpy, an enthusiastic Slime, an... eccentric... Mermaid, and a jaded Arachne. He takes a hell of a lot of abuse, but he's always up a few pages later.

Excel in Excel Saga, but also Hyatt and Elgala in the manga, as well as Ropponmatsu and Iwata on the opposite side. Of these Ropponmatsu and Iwata are justified by their artificial bodies, and Hyatt by her explicit Healing Factor, but Excel and Elgala just seem to be that tough; once both got stuck in a massive explosion in the top floor of a building that collapsed on them, and they got out "just" practically covered in bandages.

There was also an incident where Hyatt received severe burns in a fire, but was shown peeling off her bandages to reveal her usual unburnt self the following day. Much to Elgala's shock.

Matsuya has started to notice though that the technology the Department of City Security uses (which may come from a lost civlization) simply does not work on Excel.

Yokoshima from Ghost Sweeper Mikami. He always gets injured, and has spent some time in a hospital from some of his nastier injuries, and has even died on a few occasions, but always gets right back up at the mention of booty. He has also survived getting struck by lightning and falling from orbit with just Easy Amnesia as a side effect in the last one.

Yukinari is actually somewhat of a subversion as he has been shown to still have cuts and bruises hours after Kirie or another girl beats him.

Fukuyama, on the other hand, just bounces back from similar abuse but he is Too Kinky to Torture and just brushes it off.

Hayate is the focus of physical and emotional torment that would kill a lesser man a thousand times over. He has been compared to a Gundam in show for his ability to survive things such as getting run over or attacked by a tiger repeatedly.

Tomoki from Heaven's Lost Property. Not only does he get hit by megaton karate chops (one time being held up against an electrical fence), but also beam weapons to the crotch, being launched through roofs, crushed by several face-palms of doom, squashed by giant fly-swatters, dragged into the open air at Mach 17, and his most notable achievement, getting hit point-blank with a beam cannon that's able to annihilate planets and having his heart pierced. There is nothing that can kill this guy.

Keitaro Urashima of Love Hina is a paragon of this trope, largely to make his parade of unlucky injuries stay amusing. Eventually lampshaded when Su claims he is "practically immortal" and when everyone is surprised that his leg has been broken by having part of a building fall on him and it stays that way for a few chapters. Oddly, being in a cast in no way stops him from fighting Motoko's sister who sends him flying, crashing head first into streets, or getting possessed. The original injury was a bit of Tempting Fate where Mutsumi says he has used up all his luck (which is usually low) just to pass the Tokyo U entrance exam. Then Hilarity Ensues.

My Bride is a Mermaid treats both Saru and Nagasumi like this. In Nagasumi's case, it's actually a minor plot point; he has to continually avoid/survive his mermaid bride's mafia family's various attacks against him whenever they just feel like offing him, from certain family members that already hate him and are also very easily provoked (most notably the bride's father/mafia boss), if it's not just an assassin hired by the aforementioned mafia boss who is just trying to outright kill him. Despite how serious this might sound, it's really just meant as a means for hilarity to ensure. In praticular, he's subjected so often to the Mermaid Voice over the course of the series, that he eventually builds up an immunity to it.

In One Piece, we have Usopp, a character who, despite being practically useless, survived a Gastanet attack from Ceaser Clown, an attack that destroyed a good bit of AN ISLAND, and nearly killed the rest of the crew and the marines at Punk Hazard. Note that he not only has the second lowest (No, not counting that reindeer called Chopper because that's an error made by the marines) bounty, he is also shown to have the least fighting power of them all. That said, Gastanets are similar to to Nuclear bombs in power, but not in range.

In the 10th movie, he is also the only of the crew to remain conscious after being encased in a pillar of solid rock.

Tatewaki Kuno from Ranma ½. If it's painfully hilarious it will happen to him, usually without leaving a dent in his stoic expression.

Tsubasa Jumonji of Rinne. To list a few of the things that have happened to him: fallen out a two-story window, got his head chewed on by a lion at the zoo, has gotten run over by a team of sumo wrestlers, had bowling balls fall on his head, and has fallen into multiple kinds of holes. Those are only some of the things he's suffered, in two chapters alone — and he came out fine. (Albeit, he did have multiple casts on, but only for a week. At the end, he had a single bandage around his head.)

Takara from Rising × Rydeen constantly gets electrocuted by Mikan for doing something perverted, usually by accident. Mikan's lightning blasts leave most people unconscious and smoldering but thanks to Takara's powers, one of which makes his body highly insulative, he gets by with a few bruises.

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei has Nozomu Itoshiki. Although most of the injuries are self-inflicted, he has survived: drowning in wine, getting run over by a trolley, many many hanging attempts (including one in which he was yanked so hard the rope broke), his name written in the Death Note, surgery to get turned into a monster, and attempted murder by his students in a dream because they didn't want it to end. Nozomu has even been murdered a couple of times by Chiri and/or most of the class, and he turns up fine at the end of the episode/next segment.

This was forever happening to Zelgadis on Slayers. He's been used as an anchor and shot in the face with a cannonball and come out of it fine every time due to his part-golem nature.

He does bleed and gets injuries, from time to time. What does it mean? The story's gonna take a turn for the worse.

Ryoko from Tenchi Muyo!. More justified in the OVA continuity, where she's capable of regenerating from just about anything. Interestingly, she tends more to be the one inflicting the pain in said continuity.

From To Love-Ru, the extremely perverted, morbidly obese principal of Sainan High School. Is the only explanation he's still alive after all the beating Yami delivers to him on a regular basis.

Ataru from Urusei Yatsura. He is basically the very incarnation of this trope. It's even lampshaded in one book, where he gets a broken arm, and everyone can't believe it.

Souta Takanashi of WORKING!!, who regularly takes punches from a co-worker who can put holes in walls and damage utility poles with little more damage than a bloody nose and bruises that last no more than a few hours. Actively analyzed multiple times - two fellow co-workers want to keep him around (to keep the aforementioned co-worker from attacking them instead), plus it's shown how Souta got to be so resilient (regular training from one of his older sisters, a professional self-defense instructor).

Comic Books

Filemón from Mortadelo y Filemón is the god of this trope, he constantly receives horrible beatings, explosions and even gets burned and frozen several times, only for him to recover one panel later. The rest of the cast qualifies, but Filemón overshadows everyone.

The titular character is been beaten, decapitated (Ten times on the same page in one issue), burned, frozen, digested, crushed, skewered, turned into a goldfish, disintegrated... If it's painful and/or lethal, it's probably happened to him, and every time he's always duct-taped back together by the team's cleric, Piffany. Plus, it's explicitly stated that (to the irritation of his guardian angel, who has no idea what to do with him) he's actually not allowed to stay dead, due to the rules of the Henchmen's Union (and the fact that his absence would completely screw up the universe).

Henchmen in general in Nodwick. They get tied to catapult payloads as messengers to make sure the message arrived, and get to drag the giant stone back with them afterward. Their health plan comes in monthly flavors including "hemlock." Or the Hench Games, which... let's put it this way, people with heart conditions are advised to avoid the javelin toss because the henchmen compete to see how many they can catch. Nodwick just gets it the worst, which is really saying something.

Mr. Immortal of the Great Lakes Avengers is regularly killed in gruesome ways, much to Deadpool's chagrin, but his powers ensure that he'll resurrect shortly thereafter.

Deadpool himself often enters this territory due to effectively being immortal, meaning that at various points he's been shot through the head with an arrow, eaten alive by parasites, dropped out of a plane with no parachute, etc., all with no lasting effects. Handwaved in that all of this, healing factor aside, is due to a curse from Thanos to keep him away from Death - with whom both men fell in love.

Exploited in Sonic the Comic. The Sky pirates black cat Simpson is an iron buttmonkey, so when they need to get past some booby trapped stairs, Captain Plunder just kicks Simpson straight down the stairs to set them all off.

Eastern Animation

The titular wolf from Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf. He's been blasted into the sky, bitten by piranhas, hit with frying pans, blown up, beaten up, sliced, stabbed, and stomped on (to name a few things he goes through).

The second movie features even deadlier traps, including an explosion that destroys an entire floor of the house yet somehow leaves the bad guys largely unscathed.

Jeebs, from Men in Black. But only if you shoot him in the face. There are other parts of him that don't grow back.

By the sequel, his face is misshapen from multiple shots. When Jay shoots him to keep him from talking about Kay, he complains that nothing's going to taste right since it was "right in the piehole".

The Three Stooges have suffered plenty of injuries that would maim or even kill a normal human being, like having bricks fall on their heads, being shot several times in the buttocks, falling from great heights, having a stick of dynamite go off in their pants, and that's only scratching the surface.

Although if you've got to be shot, the buttocks are pretty much the healthiest place to do it. No organs, very few major blood vessels, lots of force-absorbing muscle.

Except if you get hit with shrapnel in one of the iliac arteries and bleed out within minutes. It may be the healthiest spot, but still not healthy enough.

Curly seemed the most resilient - a common gag was to have Moe pound him over the head with a hammer or run a saw over his scalp, and the tool would be irreparably damaged.

Out of the plethora of horror villains, Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th series gets the most abused. which says something.

Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker goes through many things that would normally kill a person: he survived falling from a cliff while trapped inside a car, attacked by a shark (which he got out of by biting the shark), stabbed and thrown from a building, etc. Each time he experiences one of these he just gets up and dusts himself off.

Count the number of times Alec Trevelyan from GoldenEye lives through something that should kill him. Before the opening credits, he's already been supposedly shot in the head (which was likely staged) and caught in an explosion. He later survives a great fall, and only dies because a satellite system drops on him.

The Blues Brothers survive a whole mess of stuff at the hands of Carrie Fisher's character that Jake abandoned at the altar. Drive by with a rocket launcher, demolishing the entrance of the building they were standing in front of? They just stroll through the rubble, and go inside. Apartment building blown up? Stand up, brush themselves off, and go to work. Propane tank explodes, launching their phone booth into the air? Hey, there's at least seven dollars in change in the wreckage of the payphone!

The cops are probably this to a certain extent as well — they chase the Brothers through a mall, end up either submerged in a pile of cereal boxes or with their car upturned; the apartment building explodes, and they stand up, brush themselves off, continue as normal; finally catch up with the brothers, only to end up crashing into a speeding winnebago. In the final chase, they get into a pile up (and in one case, end up landing in the side of a truck). All completely unharmed (and in Mercer's case, highly amused).

The movie even (subtly) offers an explanation for all this: the brothers are on a Mission from God, and so He's keeping anyone from getting hurt while they're doing it.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit lampshades this. Roger Rabbit is the Iron Buttmonkey both as character and actor in the Roger Rabbit/Baby Herman cartoons. After repeatedly "blowing his lines," Roger begs the director to drop the refrigerator on him one more time, saying he can take it. The director says he's more concerned about the refrigerator.

It's actually a plot point that Toons are indestructible/unkillable....almost.

When Eddie visits Toon Town, he becomes the Iron Buttmonkey, surviving abuse pretty much like a Toon.

Professor Fate in The Great Race, who survives being crushed by a falling hot air balloon, run over by a train, blasted into the ground by a rocket, blown up by a primitive grenade launcher (twice), and falling down a manhole. And that was just in the first half-hour.

Hot Rod has stuntman Rod Kimble. Though he may shrug off injuries and accidents that would otherwise kill or permanently cripple people and still be determined to save his step dad...very little actually goes right for him throughout the whole movie. You could probably count on one hand the number of times something does go right for him without a hitch on one hand.

Live Action Television

In Father Ted, every time Ted calls Father Larry Duff's mobile phone, the distraction always causes Larry to suffer a horrible misfortune, often taking the form of an accident that would kill a normal person.

Richard Hammond on Top Gear, especially in the earlier series, always seems to get the physically unpleasant challenges (sitting in a car filling with water, running to the North Pole with a dogsled, etc.) When he actually did bounce back from a No-one Could Survive That! accident, his co-presenters were courteously solemn about it for at least half a series — but now it's open joke fodder.

Poor, poor Super Dave Osborne. Whether it's jumping off the CN Tower without a parachute, being crushed by a giant tanker truck, being pulverized by a massive piledriver, getting hit in the crotch with a golf club or a baseball, falling out a window to fall two stories and crash-land on the pavement, being eaten by Mr. T, or having a piano dropped on him, Super Dave was made of this trope.

Given the accidents Tory Belleci has suffered over the course of the series (especially that bike accident), it's a wonder he's so rarely had to be treated for serious injury.

Every Mythbuster has taken a knock or two. Considering the extreme danger they create, it's a credit to their safety protocols that it wasn't more. But one member of the team stands out as a shining paragon of this trope: Buster. He's been exploded, dropped from great heights, and struck with great force countless times. In fact, there's very little that Wile E. Coyote has been subjected to that Buster hasn't, and Buster went through it for real in a live-action show without the benefit of special effects. You just have to overlook the fact that he's a crash test dummy; the rest of the cast do.

In season 2 of Chuck, a Fulcrum agent named Vincent Smith suffered extremely Amusing Injuries such as getting blown up, shot, poisoned, shot again, ran over by Chuck, knocked out by Sarah and was finally blown up again for good during an Air Strike.

Adam Young of Mr. Young has been struck by lightning, fought an alligator, had multiple weights dropped on him, fallen out of a building, and many other things, and never even breaks a bone.

Sid on CSI: NY went into anaphylactic shock from an allergic reaction to something he ate, got radiation poisoning from a victim he was performing an autopsy on, has to autopsy an ex-colleague's wife and in the same episode finds out that said ex-colleague stole organs from victims who were junkies when working at the ME's office and used them to make drugs got almost blinded by an exploding bullet when trying to remove it from a victim's head, and in the final season not too long after becoming a millionaire, gets diagnosed with cancer. And he still carries on working at the ME's office.

The title character from Captain Scarlet is blessed (or cursed) with a Wolverine-type Healing Factor, and has been "killed" and resurrected more times that Kenny from South Park. He has become something of a cultural icon; Simon Cowell once told a particularly dire stand-up comedian auditioning for The X Factor, "You just died more times than Captain Scarlet".

Professional Wrestling

Professional Wrestling is crammed with such. One need only mention World Wrestling Entertainment Superstar Colin Delaney, who repeatedly got squashed by wrestlers a great deal bigger than he was, only to be back to wrestle the next week with increasingly more bandages covering his body. Perhaps the most notorious example is former United States Women's Champion Mae Young, especially at the start of her WWE career in the late 1990s. Already well into her seventies by that point, Mae's initial gimmick was that she was an Iron Buttmonkey senior citizen who constantly took "bumps" on behalf of her best friend, The Fabulous Moolah. (She once even was smashed through a conference table by The Dudley Boys!) As if that weren't demeaning enough, Mae was also made into an Abhorrent Admirer / Christmas Cake stereotype who (among other exploits) almost gave birth to Mark Henry's baby, French-kissed Vince McMahon, and was revealed as the object of Jerry Springer's (reluctant) lust on an unforgettable episode of Monday Night Raw. The sad thing, really, is that Mae was actually an accomplished wrestler back in the day (starting her career during World War II when many male wrestlers went off to Europe or Japan), but that younger viewers watching WWE programming are likely to think she's just some repellent old lady that's kept around backstage purely for comedy purposes.

Oh gosh, ECW's Francine absolutely belongs here. After her heel turn at ECW HeatWave 96, she took so much verbal abuse from the crowds and drew so much mockery from announcer Joey Styles. Then there was all the physical abuse she took as well.

Los Ben Dejos, two small brightly clothed guys who became mainstays of Vintage Wrestling, Premier Wrestling Xperience, FIP and NWA FUW and Ring Warriors, best known for being thrown off high places and being beaten up bigger/more vindictive wrestlers for little reason. After three years of constant abuse they actually started winning a lot but never really stopped being go to targets.

Lince Dorado, who was beaten so much he ended up blind in one eye, but he just won't give up. Appropriately, after being kicked out of Chikara FIP paired him up with Los Ben Dejos as The Full Impact Puerto Ricans Power Trio.

A Henchman class for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition was published in the aforementioned Nodwick comic, based on playing one of these. They had no useful offensive options, so all class abilities were based on improving their carrying capacity, or more importantly make them take hits for others and even take advantage of death (such as spying around as a ghost until resurrected, plus being easier to resurrect). They got a d12 for hit points (matched only by the Barbarian class) to put the "Iron" in the Buttmonkey.

Video Games

Elliot from Jagged Alliance 2 certainly qualifies. Over the course of the game, he sustains cumulative wounds from Deidrenna's abuse, culminating in getting shot in the head by her when the player enters the last city- this is, as always, played for laughs when Elliot gets back up and apologizes for not being able to even die properly.

Wario is outright invincible in the Wario Land games (after the first one); any enemies encountered there either serve as obstacles that make him drop his precious coins or as a means of transforming him in some way to reach otherwise inaccessible areas. Such transformations involve his getting set aflame, frozen solid or Squashed Flat, and becoming a Human Snowball, an Accordion Man or a zombie, among other things. In any event, he's able to shrug off anything that happens to him.

The Black Baron in Madworld always demonstrates the various level's death traps...by getting thrown into them by his assistant. It's either this tropes, or he has a loooot of stunt doubles.

Phoenix in the Ace Attorney series has been whipped into unconsciousness, been hit in the face by scalding hot coffee mugs, and had birds peck at his face, and yet none of this ever leaves so much as a mark on him. At one point, he's even hit by a car and gets out of it with nothing more serious than a sprained ankle. He also once ran across a burning bridge, and fell off halfway across because the bridge fell apart, into a raging river noted that anything that falls in there goes missing forever in the middle of an enormous storm. He caught a cold.

During the course of Tales of the Abyss, Dist survives near-drowning, almost freezing to death, falling from an extremely tall tower while also being caught in an explosion (!), and a blast to the face from the most powerful magic user in the game, and is also hinted to have suffered years of abuse at Jade's hands in his childhood. Yet he never seems the worse for the wear; not only does he not die (and in fact is the only one of the Six God Generals still alive at the end), he has no scars and we never even see him injured. No wonder Jade says he's as tenacious as a cockroach.

Ivar from Tales of Xillia and Tales of Xillia 2, among other things, gets trampled by an oversized boar, accidentally lodges his own sword in his forehead, and faceplants into the ground from dozens of feet in the air, but barely is fazed by any of it. He also gets beaten up by the party on multiple occasions, but always seems more annoyed then anything else in the aftermath.

Daxter, of Jak and Daxter, has this status sometimes. The example that comes to mind is the cutscene where Daxter narrowly avoids getting blown up after Riding the Bomb. He gets up and walks away unscathed... only to be flattened underneath a piece of debris.

Hong Meiling is perhaps the best known Iron Butt Monkey of the Touhou series, as she is often caught by Sakuya slacking off during her job of guarding Scarlet Devil Mansion's gate. Fanon depicts that Meiling becomes a cushion for Sakuya's knives on a daily basis, but since Meiling is youkai, she doesn't die.

Sandbag from the Super Smash Bros. games feels no pain at all, and apparently likes to see how far it can get hit.

Vice Admiral Arthur Norbank in Nexus: The Jupiter Incident has a really hard time dying, despite his numerous failures as a commander and despite the players' sincerest wishes. His ships have been blown up so many times (due to his own incompetence), it's always an unpleasant surprise whenever he shows up safe and sound. In a later mission, the player has a chance to leave Norbank to die.

Fritz from Brain Dead 13. During his big hunt he's often hurt and damaged in several ways, including being stomped, locked in an iron maiden, having bits of a Frankenstein monster fall on him, getting shot in the face by his own cannon and so on. And let's not mention the stairs....

Weaponized in Whiplash. Redmond the rabbit is rendered indestructible due to the experiments of Genron. As such, he serves as the game's weapon, functioning like a Flail due to being chained to Spanx. He can also be "powered up" by sticking him into machines that either set him on fire, electrocute him, irradiate him or inflate him like a balloon and can break machines by being tossed into the mechanisms and jamming them.

Bowser from Super Mario Bros., at least in the Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi series. If there's any otherwise likely death inducing humiliation in those series, it's probably going to happen to him, and he keeps on going. Castle about to explode? Bowser wakes up just in time for it to come crashing down on him. Volcano erupts? He flies straight out the top of it. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is basically this the game, with Bowser having to do every stupid thing possible to progress and getting flattened by every castle, robot and train in the kingdom.

Hildibrand Manderville from Final Fantasy XIV gets subjected to a lot of physical abuse over the course of his quests, such as getting blown up by his assistant's homemade bombs (twice, even!), suplexed into the ground with enough force to create a shockwave, or hurled through a stone roof. The only harm he suffers from any of this is Clothing Damage.

In The Elder Scrolls, the Orcs have long suffered as a Butt-Monkey race. Their bestial appearance and "barbaric" culture (as it is perceived by the other races of Tamriel) make them frequent victims of Fantastic Racism. Several times the Orcs have tried to unite and create their own city-state known as Orsinium, but each time, their neighboring nations (the Bretons of High Rock and Redguards of Hammerfell) have forced them to abandon it. By the 4th Era, the Orcs were forced at swordpoint by the Bretons to officially renounce the kingdom of Orsinium and assimilate into High Rock as slaves in all but name. Only a few Orc tribes still live independently in destitute, scattered "strongholds", scorned by all. Notably, their patron deity, the Daedric Prince Malacath, teaches them to take these trials in stride, as he preaches "strength through adversity."

Ratbagthe Coward from Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is characterized by his lack of friends, stupidity, and sheer ineptitude. His last scene in the game involves him getting Blown Across the Room, courtesy of a blow from Sauron's own mace (albeit not wielded by Sauron himself, but one of his underlings). In the sequel, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, it's revealed that not only did Ratbag survive, but the mace did nothing more than knock him senseless for a while (he had a headache upon waking up, but that's hardly complaint-worthy). In the meantime, he's taken up the job of Overlord for the first fortress that Talion and co. encounter.

Web Animation

Homestar Runner has Strong Sad. He is constantly getting beaten up or worse by other characters. He ends up doing all the dangerous stunts in the Dangeresque films. And in one email, The Cheat decides to curry favor with Strong Bad. We don't see what happens, but we hear what sounds like a power drill and Strong Sad shouting "Ow! Both my face and hands!"

Grif from Red vs. Blue. Seriously, this guy once took a punch to the groin hard enough to dent the metal floor beneath him. The fact that he was able to walk straight is nothing short of extraodinary. Oh, but not just punched. Hammered by a shotgun, a gas tank, and a concrete roadblock (which partly cracked upon impact around the area), all to the groin. Tex is a mean, mean girl.

"Why won't you just kill me?"

And this is all in one episode. This isn't getting into all the times he's taken shotguns to the back, fallen several feet, and taken a shot from a tank.

The entire Blood Gulch crew qualifies for this, actually - even Washington. Everyone there is a Butt-Monkey to somebody, has survived horrible injuries, and/or been victim to No One Should Survive That at least once, Grif's just the one who survives the funniest ones.

Happy Tree Friends: Just about everyone, even 'Lumpy' and Flippy, even though the show is called Happy Tree friends!

Web Comics

Balder of Brat-Halla is immune to everything, as everything promised his mother, Frigg, they would not harm him. (Except mistletoe, of course.) Since Balder is immune to all damage, he makes an excellent club when wielded by his brother Thor. (Which is not to say he doesn't feel it...)

Fighter and Black Mage in 8-Bit Theater: The former is repeatedly stabbed in the head, often with no ill effects (it made him smarter once), while Black Mage more or less always survives what's thrown at him (having Australia dropped on him comes to mind) and when he does die that one time, it comes as quite a surprise, but he still gets resurrected in fairly short order so as to continue suffering. It's even a Justified Trope in Black Mage's case. Both good and evil sides of the Powers That Be don't want him to die, because when he does he takes over Hell; the forces of Good don't want that because Black Mage without his meat body is the apocalypse given form, and the forces of Evil don't want that because he's the wrong apocalypse given form and that leads to an awful lot of paperwork.

Largo in MegaTokyo - if we ignore the broken arm that occurred in the first dozen strips. Piro has even commented that for a long time it was Largo's job to get physically hurt and Piro's to get emotionally hurt, until their roles started blurring slightly.

Ensign Shirt (first name Red) of Legostar Galactica. It is eventually explained that he gets his superhuman resiliency from being the descendant of the Claire of a Heroes parody.

Sawbuck in Homestuck takes horrendous abuse in the comic, but still survives due to his corpulence. What makes him a Butt-Monkey to begin with, though, is that his time travel power only activates when he's hurt.

Nip of Nip and Tuck has been dropped from immense heights, blown up, set on fire, rocketed across the countryside in a homemade rocket-sled, and shot from a giant slingshot. His aptitude for this sort of thing was so bad his parents were relieved to learn he'd taken up a career as a stunt man.

Tiff of both Eerie Cuties and Magick Chicks is showing signs of this. Her first appearance in Cuties had her spend the day dead after accidentally impaling herself, and so far in her first arc in Chicks she's busted her nose and been knocked senseless by a miss aimed spell.

This is basically Riku's entire purpose on Ansem Retort, as he can inexplicably take fatal injuries without missing a beat in his nonstop whining. Zexion and Axel actively exploit this for as much schadenfreude as possible, being trapped in a reality show specifically for their capacity for cruelty. It's eventually revealed that Riku is a Time Lord with a birth defect: he can regenerate indefinitely, but never changes his appearance.

Thierry from The Redac has been stabbed many times, got hit on the head with his own guitar, and Matt even sent him to an icy exoplanet without any kind of protection. He's always back for the next page, or even the next panel. Of course, it helps that the comic doesn't take over-the-top violence too seriously.

The Guy in Tellurion. He typically gets the rough end of things earlier in the comic, but it toughens him up noticeably later on.

Epic Rap Battles of History: Adolf Hitler is frozen in carbonite at the end of his first battle, and dropped into a Rancor pit in the second. He gets cut in half in the third and still survives long enough to finish the line.

Resident Evil Abridged: During Richard's final hours at the Spencer Mansion, he gets bitten twice by a giant snake, then inoculated by his teammates who keep abandoning him afterward. And when he finally tries to get even with Chris for suggesting they ditch him the first time, a shark leaps out of the tank and eats Richard.

Western Animation

Comic relief jerkass Earl of Lemongrab of Adventure Time. Thanks to his super-hard lemon candy skin, he has supercandyperson strength. He falls head-first out of the window of a castle and smashes his head into the ground hard enough to leave a big indentation in the earth, but he was fine. (Pissed-off, though.) Then, he fell from a tree and had a pretty nasty fall right on his back. Again, he was fine- just angry.

Iago the parrot took a lot of damage in Aladdin. The only time it was not played for laughs was near the end of the sequel, when he's just destroyed Jafar's lamp and Aladdin is mystified because he seems to be dead, but Genies can't kill anyone. You'd be surprised what you can live through.

American Dad! has Steve who is always getting attacked by animals, bullies or suffering other injuries. He often injures himself horribly but always comes back in the next episode as if nothing has happened. Interestingly, he very rarely breaks his glasses, unlike what would probably happen in real life.

The entire family isn't exactly exempt. Stan, Francine, Hayley, Klaus, and yes, even Roger have all been shown to get horribly injured on a regular basis, some are even worse than Steve's mentioned above (Francine for instance, has been shown to suffer brain injury) and all would show up next episode relatively not phased at all.

Deconstructed: Every single stray bullet that gets fired in or around ISIS headquarters hits Brett. However he's shown to have serious injuries in later episodes, bad enough to qualify for a disabled parking space. Outright subverted in the fifth season, where he finally takes one in the head and immediately dies.

In the more recent season they even manage to bounce back after being bitten by a hobo and recieving multiple incurable diseases.

XR from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command exemplifies this trope. The name's short for "X-pendable Ranger," and he was designed to be easily repaired after massive damage, so Once an Episode he meets a brutal fate, complaining all the while.

He insists it stands for "X-perimental Ranger". His presence on this page begs to differ.

In Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-Lot, Oopsy Bear was noted for his ability to "fall over and over and over and over without hurting himself."

Dave the Barbarian has Dave. While everyone takes a bit of punishment, Dave is the most often in line to be beaten up, set on fire, blasted with magic or pummelled with heavy objects, but given that he is the size of a house and recovers almost instantly, it never seems to have any effect other than aggravating his usual cowardice.

Fluffy and Uranus of Duckman are effectively living teddy bears, and routinely get eviscerated in elaborate ways by the title character.

Ed, Edd n Eddy. Ed has dropped houses on Edd and Eddy, the Kankers' trailer fell on the Eds, a pile of garage sale junk fell on Ed, all three suffered spontaneous combustion after eating some jalapeno hot sauce, Ed zapped Edd with a static electricity bolt powerful enough to blow up the latter's house. If all that's not enough, all three once smashed into the sky, shattering into pieces.

Special mention goes to Eddy, seeing as he's the biggest butt monkey of the three; he's been beaten up more than anyone else on the show, had his arm smashed against a filing cabinet repeatedly, run through a thorn bush naked, been attacked by a psychotic rooster, trampled by hippos, been struck by lightning, shattered into bits like glass, had his hair used as a violin, had his head sucked into a vacuum, used as the ball in a giant set of Newton Balls, had his head smashed into a tree God knows how many times, been smashed on against a metal trailer like a super ball, had his head pecked by a chicken for twenty-four hours then shrunk, run over by a truck and a train, but for the most part walks it off.

Family Guy. The entire family. Peter falls down stairs (repeatedly), Brian (being a dog) gets hit by cars, Stewie's had large pieces of glass stuck in his head, Lois has fallen off the roof and been drenched in scalding-hot french fry oil... and yet its Meg who's the series Buttmonkey. Ironic, huh?

Not to mention that Meg's suffered such indignities as having her hair set on fire, having a piano fall on her (something that also befell Peter) and been shot full of poison darts. Really, the only family member who has not been an Iron Butt Monkey is Chris. Go figure.

Mentioned by Billy West in a commentary, Fry from Futurama: getting slammed into a wall at full speed by those transport tubes, surviving a fall from a helicopter without deploying his parachute, eating a big heaping bowl of salt, three cola induced heart attacks in high school. And those are the ones that don't involve super-advanced medicine or symbiotic worms.

Gawayn: Sir Roderick takes this trope Up to Eleven and is a literal example, actually being encased in armour.

In fact, in the sort of spin-off series Loonatics Unleashed, being an Iron Butt Monkey is Tech. E. Coyote's superpower.

Daffy Duck's been shot enough times, his face (or at least his beak) should no longer be recognized. Sylvester's gone through many of the abuses that Tom has suffered over the years, being beaten, smashed, electrified, and so much else. Still other villains like Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian and the Tasmanian Devil have also survived incredible injuries.

Lampshaded in a Cartoon Network commercial that asked a bunch of questions people wondered about cartoons. They ask "How come you guys never get hurt?" and 3 characters answer "A good diet." "Exercise." "Flexibility really."

Spike in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has armored scales, and has been literally used as a pincushion without ill effect. Twilight can take a surprising amount of punishment as well, though this has yet to be lampshaded.

All ponies seem capable of taking pretty big punishment: Rainbow Dash breaks her wing in one episode and walks it off within a matter of days, Pinkie Pie is run ragged by the Cake twins, Applejack almost works herself to death in "Applebuck Season". The only ponies out of the Mane Six who haven't had a lot of physical punishment yet are Rarity and Fluttershy.

Doofenshmirtz. Every day, Perry ends up foiling his plans in some way, leading to the destruction of one of his many -Inators in a massive explosion or something that will bring some harmful treatment to Doofenshmirtz. In spite of this, he rarely ever seems hurt or displays any kind of bodily damage. So far he's survived fiery explosions, being hit by a giant ball of aluminum, the eruption of a volcano, the sinking of his lair while perched over a crocodile's mouth, crashing headlong into his own building several times, and multiple other situations.

Candace. She is very durable, having remained uninjured after suffering from perilous falls and even lightning strikes.

Pinky and the Brain regularly get smashed, beaten, exploded, so forth, as Brain's schemes fail (a memorable one being the time they are blasted from the top of the Space Needle, all from Pinky's perspective). Of course, Pinky doesn't really mind when Brain bops him on the head, so perhaps he's okay with it. Brain, however, gets the worst of it. Naturally, they're still standing (if bruised) at the end of every episode, ready to do "the same thing we do every night".

Pretty much all the characters in Rocko's Modern Life have fallen to this trope at least once in an episode, Rocko being the occasional victim of this.

Sonic Boom subjects the entire cast to some form of physical abuse (yes, even the girls), but the most frequent victims are Eggman and Knuckles. To be fair, though, both of them tend to invite suffering upon themselves, such as when Knuckles went through a minefield of exploding baby ducks and picked up almost every single one...

South Park's Ike was like this right up until about the time he started going to school. Most of his appearances involved Kyle playing "Kick the Baby!" and punting him through windows.

Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants: His unfortunate fates include being shot out of a cannon, run over by a giant boulder, hit in the face with a pie bomb, zapped by the Flying Dutchman, attacked by a bear, and blown up from eating too many krabby patties, as well as having his toenail ripped off and his head explode. Yet he always manages to get right back to the way he was, and even managed to take a level in badass in "Spongebob, You're Fired!".

Plankton, Mrs. Puff and sometimes even SpongeBob himself are just as unlucky.

Steven: You don't poof easily, huh? Peridot: [whilst under a boulder] Us Peridots are stronger than we look!note If "Reunited" is anything to go by, one of the few things that can poof her is a direct electrocution from Yellow Diamond

Though it pales in comparison, Ronaldo has brushed off a number of comical injuries, which is especially notable given he's completely human. He once got in a fight with the Crystal Gems that realistically would have broken his hand and jaw, as well as possible his skull, neck, or back, then recovers instantly. Keep Beach City Weird mentions a refrigerator falling on top of him, whereupon his only concern was being stuck under it.

This was a plot point of all things in The Penguins of Madagascar. Mort, our resident Buttmonkey, is so dumb that he can take lethal blows without serious damage. The penguins decide to suction out their own brains so that they, too, can have this "Halo of Ignorance". It works until they are too stupid to carry out their mission.

Homer Simpson is the king of this trope. He goes through everything from falling off a cliff (twice), to slamming into a tree in his car, suffering from skiing incidents, waterfall plunges, animal maulings, getting shot by a nailgun, amateur brain-surgery, amateur heart surgery, and getting hammered by a champion boxer!!! Not to mention getting shot by a cannon daily for a living as one of his many, many jobs. One has to wonder if he is truly immortal...

Sideshow Bob counts in Cape Feare when he manages to be unhindered by a parade trampling him. Said parade also had about six or so ELEPHANTS that trampled him. Before that he had survived hitting his head against the speeding road, scalding hot coffee ("Ugh! This coffee is too hot!" *Pours it down the side and we hear scalding noises* GAHHHH!!), a drive through a cactus patch, and rakes. Lots and Lots of rakes.

Time Squad: All three main characters; Larry has been electrocuted, smashed by a washing machine, been shot at, several times his body has been reduced to just a head, and has had his computer system scrambled by magnets. Otto gets frequently beat up by people from history, chased by a grizzly bear, viciously attacked by an evil My Little Pony (seriously), suffers from Tuddrussel's stunts, was crushed by a bookcase (off-screen), left in a hurricane, and was practically the resident buttmonkey at the orphanage. Tuddrussel takes a good amount for himself when it comes to getting beaten up by people, like Joan of Arc for example, has been slammed into the ground after destroying a giant fly monster, attacked by a lion, took on lava from the top of a volcano and really takes an equal amount as his comrades.

Tom of Tom and Jerry. Like Wile E. Coyote, he seems to be genuinely impervious to damage, with the exception of a few episodes where he does actually die. And even then, it never sticks.

Waspinator of Transformers: Beast Wars. It helps that, being a Transformer, he's made of metal. Once the writers saw the pattern they'd made, they kicked it Up to Eleven, having poor Waspy blown up, ripped apart, or shredded in nearly every episode ever. He always survives. In fact, he is one of the three characters introduced in the first episode of Beast Wars to survive to the end of Beast Machines. Yeah, it's that kinda show.

Kind of. Waspinator's manner of speaking frustrated the writers in the first season. Since he had to make an appearance in every episode, they took to him making those appearances in pieces. This had the effect of making him a favorite with the fans. Once the writers caught onto this, Waspinator gets scrapped in increasingly hilarious ways.

H.E.L.P.eR. of The Venture Bros.. This household staff robot has been dismantled by rogue Monarch henchmen, had his legs ground off by acting as surrogate landing gear, been beaten to death and ejected to space by the Venture brothers, been burned up on re-entry, had his nipples electrocuted, and been detonated and lodged in the chest of Brock Samson. Upon reflection, H.E.L.P.eR. can be seen as something of a deconstruction (no pun intended) of the Iron Woobie automaton. One of the reasons he sees so much action these days is because Dr. Venture has watched him take punishment for thirty-odd years and has become desensitized to it. (There's a moment when arch-enemy The Monarch demands Venture's cooperation because he has H.E.L.P.eR as a hostage, and Venture reacts as though The Monarch is insane.) The rest of the family treat H.E.L.P.eR much more like a person. Brock Samson is probably his healthiest friend (and maybe vice-versa?).

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy